Paintball: Extreme Sport or Barrel Full of Fun?

8 a.m. on a recent Sunday morning and I had already showered, eaten breakfast & gotten dressed (hopefully appropriately) to venture out onto 40+ acres about 25 minutes outside of Albany to take part in a day of Paintball.

I met up with some of my Albany All Stars teammates at Albany Scenario Club in Nassau, NY (www.albanyscenarioclub.org), where a brief tutorial on safety and game play did not quite prepare us for the day ahead. It was raining and muddy and chilly—perfect weather for crawling around in the woods!! The masks are full face (and CANNOT be removed for ANY reason), the gun (with hopper for paint ‘bullets`) and CO2 cartridge are heavy, but the equipment gave a (false) feeling of safety and purpose. About 12 of us showed up to play and we were met by a few dozen seasoned players who had navigated these woods before. We all began to wonder just what had we signed up for? But hey, we are roller derby girls—we could handle this, right?

We were split up into two teams and given the ‘scenario’ for our first game (each game/scenario has its own objective/goal) and we headed out onto the field. My mask had already fogged up, I felt disoriented and was still trying to get a ‘feel` for the terrain when the first shots rang out. As I peeked out from behind a barricade, I immediately got ‘popped` in the mask directly over my left eye. Off I went to the designated ‘ re-spawn’ area so that I could re-enter the game. There were referees (much like roller derby) all over the field keeping people honest and safe. My teammate, Sin & Tonic and I took off through the woods and hunkered down behind another barricade, but before we could make a determination as to our best strategy, Sin got ‘lit up` as they call it and off she went to ‘ re-spawn’. I spent the next 10 minutes trying to get closer to any of the flags in hopes of flipping it to our teams color. Before I made any real headway, I heard the referees signaling the end of our first game. That could not have been 30 minutes already??!!

The next few hours were spent running through the woods and crawling on our bellies; hiding behind trees and anything else we could find that offered protection. Paintballs exploded on our thighs, backs, masks, everywhere. We were wet, muddy, tired and hungry. Throughout the day we participated in several more games/scenarios and by end of day we were completely exhausted and a bit sore here and there.

One of my teammates, Double Shelix later remarked that this had been one of the most fun days that she has had in the last decade and she would definitely be going back again soon.
I must concur.